UpNano, a Vienna, Austria-based 2PP 3D printing specialist, announced that it has successfully raised capital to strengthen the innovation management and business development of Two-Photon Polymerization, or 2PP technology. The new capital was entirely funded by existing investors, including IGO Industries, an international holding company based in Austria.
The funds will be used to strengthen the ongoing innovation process centered on the highly successful NanoOne 2PP 3D printer line. This will include speeding up the industry’s already fastest 2PP 3D printing process. As a result, the technology becomes even more appealing for serial production. Furthermore, the new capital will help the company’s expansion in the United States.
What is Two-Photon Polymerization or the 2PP Technology?
UpNano’s high-resolution 3D printing system is based on 2-photon polymerization (2PP), which allows for sub-micrometer resolution. The spatial selectivity of 2-photon absorption is used in the 2PP 3D printing technology (2PA). Beyond the focus point, the 2PA probability decreases significantly, and thus the fluorescent volume decreases, resulting in higher spatial resolution.
UpNano’s NanoOne 2PP 3D printer range is in high demand, with sales expected to triple by 2021, current production increasing by 50%, and a successful entry into the US market. The extremely compact desk top print system provides high-resolution 3D printing across twelve orders of magnitude in the industry’s fastest production times. A capital increase from existing investors will now boost both the development of new innovations – including those that will accelerate manufacturing times even further – and the expansion into the US market.
Innovation by Continuity
Among the existing investors is the internationally renowned IGO Industries Group, an Austrian industry holding with over 24.000 employees and a turnover of several billion EUR.
According to Bernhard Küenburg, CEO of UpNano, “In times of bumpy rides on the stock exchange and wild changes of ownerships in the highly competitive 2PP 3D printing industry, we are grateful for a profitable 2021 and the trust – and deep pockets – of our existing investors. They alone financed our recent capital increase. This ensures our steady and focused innovation process as well as our independence and our expansion plans.”
The capital increase is well timed as UpNano experiences a significant increase in sales and thus optimizes its supply chain management. UpNano gains even more control over the delivery of parts, the assembly process, and quality control as a result of this process, and can thus guarantee customers a faultless product and prompt delivery. This optimized process also allows the company to intensify its drive for innovation, for which new capital has been set aside.
“Already our NanoOne range of printers offers the widest range of printable sizes and with 8 Mio. voxels per second the highest speed on the market. It also is capable of printing with living cells, but that is just the start. Even faster manufacturing speeds will enable true series production and more innovations will address the needs of specific industries. To this end we will expand our R&D department and intensify our efforts.”
– Denise Hirner, Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of UpNano
Two recent patent applications by the company regarding printing speed highlight the company’s commitment to continuous optimization and innovation. Furthermore, UpNano’s innovation engineers are currently working on a well-known complication of 2PP technology that reduces precision when producing large scale specimens, and their solution will be available soon.
Successful US Market Entry
UpNano stated that the new capital investment will help accelerate the company’s US expansion, which began in April with the hiring of Erika Bechtold, formerly Director of Technology Commercialization at Harvard’s Office for Technology Development. A first unit has already been sold to an industry customer in the United States, and discussions with academic partners there are well underway.
Overall, UpNano’s recent successes and investors’ continued trust enable the company to both strengthen its market position and remain the innovation leader in the 2PP 3D laser printing industry.
About UpNano GmbH: Founded in September 2018 as a spin out of the TU Wien, UpNano is a Vienna-based high-tech company with the focus on development, manufacturing and commercialization of high-resolution 3D-printing systems based on 2-photon polymerization.
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